John Paul graduate follows her principal to new school in Arizona

Teresa Morris (left) and Sr. Mary Jordan Hoover walk outside St. John Paul II Catholic High School in Phoenix. COURTESY

Dominican Sister Mary Jordan Hoover,
founding principal of Saint John Paul the Great Catholic High School in
Dumfries, left in 2016 to open another high school named after the sainted
pope. In addition to the similar name, the Phoenix school also will be led by the
Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia. Students will be taught with the bioethics
curriculum pioneered at the Virginia school.

Sister Mary Jordan wanted to make sure the
new school had the same Christ-filled culture of the old. So she invited a
familiar face to move to Arizona and teach at the school — John Paul the Great
graduate Teresa Morris. The alumna had planned on teaching in the future and
fondly remembered her time at the then-fledgling Dumfries school.

“The way everyone interacts there is
joy-filled. There’s an understanding that regardless of what classes or sports (you
do), every person has profound dignity and you are treated as such,” said
Morris. “There was always a clear understanding that there was a who behind the
what of what we were taught, and the who was the person of Christ.”

Morris was a student at John Paul the Great
when a little more than 200 students attended, so Sister Mary Jordan got to
know nearly all of them, she said. “Teresa was a three-sport athlete, and she
was a standout in many ways,” she said. After Morris graduated, she studied
philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington, in part
inspired by the bioethics curriculum. She and her former principal kept in
touch when Morris would stop by to pick up her younger brother from her alma
mater.

Morris currently is working toward a master’s in bioethics from Loyola University Chicago. She was spending a year as a missionary
teacher in Belize when Sister Mary Jordan reached out. This fall, Morris will
teach ethics, English and public speaking at the new school.

“It’s a huge gift and massive
responsibility to be teaching at all,” said Morris. She’s most excited about
the ethics class. “It’s beautiful to teach young minds these difficult and
controversial ideas, and to equip them to go out and think for themselves and
be confident in defending the faith in a logical way.”

Sister Mary Jordan is proud to see Morris
and many of the John Paul the Great graduates making an impact at their
universities and in their careers. “(I hear of former students) doing wonderful
things for God because of who they are and the formation they received,” she
said. “For me, it's just a wonderful confirmation of God's love.”